


positive bias

by pasdecoeur



Series: superbat works [4]
Category: DC Extended Universe, DCU, Justice League (2017)
Genre: Kissing Kink, Kryptonian Biology, M/M, gratuitous misuse of the emdash, the last chapter is just.....a bad excuse for porn, this is my life; these are my choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-10-26 17:34:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17750387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdecoeur/pseuds/pasdecoeur
Summary: There are certain things they don't do, and kissing is one of them.Until it isn't.*[loosely based off ofthis prompt] Clark has a secondary sexual organ in his mouth right where the soft palate begins in a human. Consider it like a clit. I'd like 5 times Bruce/Batman made Clark come in his pants just from kissing, ranging from discovery to just for s&g.





	1. Chapter 1

**(observe your surroundings)**

There are certain things they don't do.

Kissing is one of them. Clark isn't sure whose brilliant idea that was, because he wants to— He's always wanted to— Well, it doesn't fucking matter, because kissing isn't. It isn't something they do.

Fucking in the Hall of Justice is another thing they don't do, because the Hall is where Diana lives and Cyborg lives and Aquaman occasionally naps, and they all have absolutely ridiculous aural capacities, and what they do is very much a– A secret.

Except.

Except they're apparently slamming right past the gates on that rule right now, because Bruce has him pinned against the wall in a service corridor, a forearm jammed against his chest, their foreheads tipped together, breathing quick and harsh. Clark can feel his breath against his skin, warm and coffee-scented, the faint notes of cologne, sweat, and Kevlar. Bruce's hand is low on his hip, his thumb making a slow deliberate trek down the vee of his hips. He can feel Bruce getting harder, can feel the slow throb of his blood moving south, see the dilation of his pupils and the spike of arousal.

 _Get on with it,_ he wants to snap, but he’s too—too afraid to say anything, to break the fragile silence of this moment. _Touch me,_ he wants to beg, _please, god, touch me, do something,_ but Bruce is the immovable object to his unstoppable force, and Clark doesn't want to find out what happens when the two meet.

So he stays there, hard, cranked, hungry for it, trying to breathe through it—it's not a surprise, when the first touch of Bruce’s hand makes a soft, pained noise escape his throat, the deliberate pressure of his palm right up against the base of his cock, through the suit.

“Ssh,” Bruce murmurs, but he sounds—delighted, almost, like he was waiting to say it. The pressure on his aching cock goes away and Clark’s hips jerk off the wall, chasing the relief. He feels a hand on his side, a slight pressure. _Stay._ “Or I stop. Okay?”

Clark nods, mutely. _Okay._

Bruce’s smile is a sharp, honed dagger of a curve. “Good,” he says. “That’s good, Clark,” in that dark, low whisper, almost on the edge of Batman’s growl. The hand on his cock returns, blissful, tight. Clark ruts against it, shameless, Bruce’s heartbeat thundering around him. His hands are buried in Bruce’s hair, against the small of his back, can feel his cock against his thigh.

“Tell me,” Bruce murmurs, again the corner of his mouth. Its like his own pleasure has barely registered for him, and meanwhile Clark is this desperate, hungry thing, that Bruce has taken apart. “Tell me what you want.”

Is this a test? To get him to talk?

Bruce chuckles. “Tell me. I won't stop.”

And just like that—the brakes come off. “I want to suck you off,” he says, the words all tumbling off his tongue in a rush. Bruce’s eyes widen, the hand on his cock tightens. His _heart…_ “I want to get my mouth around you, I want to feel you in my throat, I want to taste you, I never want to stop tasting you, oh god Bruce—”

Bruce has managed to shove his pants down, get his hand around Clark’s naked cock—the pleasure is blitzing, and Clark slams his head back, the friction of Bruce’s dry palm along his wet, too sensitive cock _painful_ , painfully good, “Oh fuck, _Bruce,”_ and Bruce’s teeth are digging into the tendons of his neck, kissing and biting and leaving with his hot, silken tongue, marking a path to his jaw, his hand a tight, hot blur, and Bruce says, “Tell me, tell me,” his voice hoarse and shaking.

“I want you to come in my throat, I want to eat your come, I want to taste nothing else, fuck me, you need to, please, please, I need you to–” and Bruce hisses, “Ssh, god damn it, Clark,” guttural and angry, and there’s a hard gauntlet at his jaw, twisting his face upwards, and Bruce is sealing their lips together, fucking brutally into his mouth. Clark groans around his tongue, and that's the moment- that moment when- when Bruce finds the spot, that soft, plush bulge along the roof where the palate should be, runs his tongue along it curiously, pulls back just long enough for Clark to _growl_ \- to drag that gorgeous fucking mouth exactly where it belongs. “Again,” he demands, and opens his mouth and Bruce obliges, another slow, hard drag of the tip of his tongue, right there, right again that perfect fucking spot, and Clark—

Clark shakes, trembles, sucks on his tongue, and groans into his mouth, and he’s coming in the next moment, nebulae shattering behind his eyelids, coming massively, in thick hard knee-wracking spurts, coating Bruce’s hand, his hips, their thighs, hot ropes of come, while Bruce does it again and again fucks his mouth while bitten off curses, until Clark is shoving him away because it _hurts_.

“Come on,” he mumbles, mouth feeling thick and useless. He brings his palms down stroking along Bruce's back, flush against his ass, nudging his high against the hard, aching cock. “Come on, ride me, baby,” and Bruce makes a quiet, desperate noise, buried his face against the curve of Clark's throat, thrusts once, twice, and then he’s coming, hard and sharp and—

It's a long minute before Bruce pulls back, and Clark tucks himself away. Bruce’s eyes are focused, narrowed, and it's a little alarming, how rapidly the man leaves behind the afterglow. “Okay,” he says, sharp and rapid, back to being the man who runs Wayne Inc. and the League and most of Gotham City. “We need to talk about that.”

Ha. Fat chance.


	2. Chapter 2

**(ask a question)**

Bruce is, as it turns out, alarmingly good at kissing.

It shouldn't be a surprise, really, because Clark has yet to find a single thing Bruce isn't absolutely fucking excellent at, but—but even in his wildest dreams he couldn't have imagined this… this slow, gentle kissing, his back against an exhaust vent on a rooftop in the bad part of Gotham, Bruce's teeth nipping gently at his lip, the broad stroke of his tongue against the hurt, sucking his bottom lip into that heated mouth. This glacial sort of eroticism, like he's making up for lost time, that has Clark fisting up wads of the cape, hands sliding against the slick, glossed surface of the Batsuit, panting into Bruce’s mouth.

He drags his tongue against Bruce’s, moans into his mouth, whispers, “Come on, _please_ ,” and feels the vibration of a breathless laugh.

“What do you want?” Bruce asks, because—because Bruce likes _torturing_ him apparently, the bastard, so Clark says, “Like last time, Bruce, you son of a bitch—” and thank _god_ , thank god Bruce isn't enforcing the no names while in suits rule right now, just dragging his tongue against Clark’s, against the line of his teeth against—

Oh that _asshole_.

He’s avoiding it. He’s avoiding the spot on purpose, because Clark didn't talk about it last time, superspeeded out of the Hall to avoid what was sure to be a cringingly horrible conversation. This is—this is some kind of fucked up _punishment_.

Clark pulls away and glares at him. “If you're just screwing with me—” he starts to say and Bruce chuckles.

His cowl is down and Clark can't see his eyes past the lenses, but his mouth is red and bruised and glistening, and Clark’s heart twists hard in his chest, his thumb brushed against the full, bitten lower lip.

Bruce's voice is dark and low when he replies. “I haven't even started, sweetheart,” and before Clark can—can _process_ that, he’s brought them together again, and it's like before again, that crushing, mind-altering heat from before, his tongue sinking into Clark’s mouth with a feverish hunger, dragging in tight, fast strokes against the roof of his mouth, against that soft plush heat. Clark can't stop groaning, can't stop sucking on his tongue, can't stop rutting against Bruce’s hard, perfect thigh, and then—

Then Batman's comm goes off, fuck _fuck no._

“Batman,” Bruce growls, one palm flat on Clark’s chest, angling him away, a glare in the shape of his jaw.

Clark can hear Alfred on the other end. “Your eleven-thirty reminder, Batman. The party on Fifth.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Penny-One.”

Bruce meets Clark’s impatient gaze. “Ah. Sorry. I have to—”

“Oh no you don't,” Clark snaps back. “You’re going to _finish_ what _you_ started.”

Bruce smirks. “Rain check,” he murmurs, and pulls in anyway, and presses a quiet, achingly sweet kiss at the corner of his mouth. “See you ‘round, Superman.”

When Clark opens his eyes, and comes back online, Bruce is half a mile across Gotham already. “Oh my god.” He flicks open the commlink. “Did you _plan_  that? Did you time that, you raging douchenozzle? Was that on _purpose_?”

There is a thrum in the air that sounds like laughter.

Clark's pretty goddamn sure that's not his imagination.

* * *

 

 

 

**(obtain background data)**

Before, Clark could have told you, more or less, where they stood.

Before Clark could have said, we’re allies who hate each other, except for when we're having the best sex of my life.

Sure, that was complicated, but it was also—definitive. It established parameters for their... "relationship". Drew clear, precise boundaries in his mind.

That particular fence had been fucking obliterated though, hadn't it? Nothing left of it but a shadow on a wall, in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion.

….it probably said something about them, that Clark kept thinking of his and Bruce's making out in terms of worldwide extinction events.

It probably said nothing good.

Clark couldn't stop smiling anyway.

“You two are getting along,” Diana said to him, one evening, abruptly, after debrief. He was walking beside her, down a long, empty corridor in the Hall of Justice. “I thought it would take longer.”

Clark shrugged. “I’m beginning to see his point of view better.”

“Yes,” Diana murmured, and there was a dark, mischievous glitter in his eyes, “I’m sure you are.”

Clark stared at her, caught that awful terrible wink of hers, and his heart dropped to his stomach in horror. “Christ, you _know_?”

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

It had been some months ago, at the beginning of their—thing, whatever you wanted to call it.

Clark had caught Bruce’s eye at the end of a League meeting, hoping Bruce would follow him, knowing what he would expect and dreading the conversation they had to have instead.

Sure enough, Bruce tracked him down to the hangar, standing in lee side of the Batwing, waiting.

“Not here,” Batman has growled.

“Yeah,” Clark nodded. He had expected that. It was fine. Bruce had certain requirements. Clark was fine with it. “It's not—that. We need to talk.”

That gave Bruce pause. His jaw tensed. “I see. Fine.”

Clark frowned. “What?”

“I’d rather skip the talk,” Bruce said irritably. His hand was clenching into a tight fist at his side, and then releasing, repeatedly, like some kind of bizarre biological stress release. “If it's all the same to you. This isn't high school. I don't need hand-holding, I assure you.”

“Skip what?” Clark asked, completely nonplussed. “I need to talk to you about your charity art auction.”

“I... What?”

It was maybe the first time Clark had seen Bruce at a loss for words—at least, with his clothes on. He tried to ignore it. “Perry said you’re hosting a thing for the Nolan Foundation on Canaveral? A benefit ball? On the twenty-sixth, right?” Bruce nodded, sharply, once, and Clark continued, “Right okay, so, normally that's a society issue, except it's Milan Fashion Week and the auction proceeds are going towards Nolan, which is like, urban poverty and recidivism rates and halfway houses, you know? No, of course you know—”

“You’ve been assigned to cover the event,” Bruce concluded.

Clark sighed. “Yeah. Yes.”

That tense, jumping vein in Bruce's jaw had not subsided. He didn't like this, it seemed. He… extremely didn't like this. Which was fair, Clark's thought distantly, through the growing numbness in his chest. The last time they had ended up at a party together, things hadn't gone great.

“If…” Clark started, haltingly, “if that's a problem, I’ll figure something out. Get an intern out to do the piece instead. If it's a problem.”

_Of course not,_ is what he had wanted Bruce to say. And maybe, _come by the Cave afterwards. There's an issue with the cartels operating on the Bialyan border that we need to discuss._ And Clark would have met Bruce's eye, and nodded, and that would be—

That would be enough.

That would be all Bruce ever needed to say.

He would know where they stood.

And maybe, maybe someday there would be a meeting, and the rest of of the League wouldn't blink when he and Bruce arrived together and left together.

‘Those two,’ they would say to each other, and roll their eyes. ‘Completely useless without each other.’ Like it was perfectly ordinary and natural. Even a little boring.

It wasn't as if Clark wanted the flowers and the dancing and the hired skywriter. He didn't need the grand gesture; so much of his life was shoved under a goddamn microscope—having this one thing to themselves… It wasn't just secretiveness on Bruce's part. Clark liked it too.

But it was one thing to _choose_ to stay in the dark with your lover; it was altogether a different matter when you were shoved into the closet by the man you—

“That would be best,” Bruce was saying.

Clark blinked. “Sorry. What?”

“Sending an intern. To cover the charity auction. As you suggested. That's fine. That would be best.”

Clark nodded.

_You idiot._ The voice is head was gleeful, vicious with delight. _You desperate, pathetic idiot._

He kept his eyes trained somewhere over Bruce’s left shoulder, like he was distracted, lost in thought. The numbness had spread to his throat now.

If he was human, he would have shivered.

“Alright,” he said anyway. “Consider it done.” Amazing, how you could keep sounding so normal, when your insides were being scythed apart. “Have a good night, Bruce.”

He lifted off from the ground, through the skylock, and into the velvety night sky above. Bruce's eyes did not follow him as he left.

But that was expected. They never did.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**(form a testable hypothesis)  
**   
Here's another they don't do--or more accurately, here's another thing they've never done before: take their time.  
  
It's never been like this.  
It's always secretive, hard, quick, grinding and heavy petting and handjobs, hot enough to make Clark lose his goddamn mind, but that was because he had no idea--no idea--what Bruce was like, in the privacy of his own home, on a mattress the size of a small European principality, with all the time in the world--to spend on _Clark_. Jesus. To spend on whispering dirty nothings into his ear, to tear his clothes off and get those beautiful, clever hands all over his body, to map every line with that filthy, gorgeous mouth--  
  
That mouth, that's working on an impossible bruise, right up against Clark’s jugular, when his heartbeat throbs hard and fast. Bruce still has his pants on, but Clark is naked underneath him, smearing wetness against the bulge of Bruce’s cock.  
  
Bruce digs his fingers into Clark’s ass and rolls his hips, in this devastating move, that has Clark digging his heels into the mattress, screwing his eyes shut.  
  
“Yeah? Right there, huh?” Bruce sounds pleased, breathless, and Clark rips his stupid goddamn pants off in a single violent move, slots their hungry, aching cocks together, feels Bruce shudder against him.  
  
“So I have,” Bruce is mumbling, half lost against his skin, “I have this theory.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Bruce peels himself away, and Clark glares at him ineffectually. “Don’t you _dare_ ,” Clark hissed at him. “Don’t you dare leave me hanging, not again.”  
  
Bruce is levered on a single forearm, his chest glistening with sweat, and his fingers are light against Clark’s face, tracing the line of his nose, the arch of a dark brow, the hollow beneath an eye. “I have a theory,” Bruce repeats. His fingers are coasting along Clark’s mouth now, and Clark’s heart is in his throat.  
  
“What’s the fucking theory,” Clark sighs, and Bruce’s fingers slip past his lips on that last syllable. He can taste salt and skin and faintly, faintly, a thousand other things, a roadmap of Bruce’s day, food and soap and leather and brickdust and engine oil, and Bruce underneath it, the sweet pulse of his blood.  
  
The fingers turn upside down, and then--then comes that blinding deliberate pressure, the rub of those fingertips against that fleshy softness inside his mouth, and Clark is groaning, shuddering, crying out around his fingers, his cock spurting precome across his chest, arching off the bed, Bruce along with him.  
  
Bruce straddles his hips, grinds their cocks together carelessly, and he’s saying, “I have a theory, that you could come just from this. Could you?”  
  
Clark doesn't know, he’s never. Never tried.  
There’s a hungry, ravenous look in his eyes.  
  
“Could milk your pretty mouth, with nothing else. Nothing else.” Clark’s eyes are wide open, and Bruce’s fingers are sliding along the spot, pressing, holding that firm glorious pressure. “Is that why you need my cock in your beautiful mouth, sweetheart?” Bruce whispers. “Is that why? So you could rub this spot right against my cock? Is that what you need?”  
  
There's a sound filling up his ears, a low continuous pitch, and it takes a second for Clark to realize that's him, he’s making that sound, he’s clutching the back of Bruce’s thigh, hard enough to bruise, to break, rubbing his wet, leaking cock desperately against his hip, and making that awful, keening sound. Bruce leans down, kisses his cheek, his closed eyelid, his brow and whispers, “Let go, sweetheart, let me see you,” and Clark does, breath gusting hot against those relentless fingers, coming hard enough to white out his mind, missing completely the raw, desperate look on Bruce’s face as he comes apart too.

* * *

  
  
**(conduct an experiment)**  
  
They're not--dating.  
  
Clark is clear on this.  
Clark is very clear on this.  
  
He looks in the mirror and thinks, _listen up, asshole, this is casual. You need to keep it casual. You need to not be obvious and stupid and fuck this up, you need to play this cool, because the moment he feels like you want more, he's going to drop you like a hot coal._  
  
He thinks, _Bruce doesn't love you,_ and feels something ugly and tight curl up inside his chest.  
  
He thinks, _Bruce tried to kill you,_ and quashes the voice that argues, _Bruce brought you back,_ because--because the distance is necessary.  
  
The distance is the only thing holding them together.  
  
That's probably ironic.  
Clark is probably very, very, deeply fucked.

* * *

 

  
Clark’s at the Planet when the attack occurs. Broad daylight isn’t the standard MO for Gotham’s villains, but it’s a grim autumn afternoon across the bay, the sky a vault of endless of gray, rainclouds threatening at the horizon, the air crackling with ozone.  
  
He stares up at the TV screen in the bullpen in mounting horror, as a panicky TV reporter talks in rapid-fare, staccato sentences, like a sportscaster on a bad speed trip, winds whipping his suit jacket, smoke rising in the background, the orange glow against the horizon like fire. Clark is frozen in his seat for a second, and then the massive W on Wayne Tower--explodes.  
  
He’s airborne in the space of a breath, and he can still hear Jimmy saying, “Hey, where did Clark go?” each syllable stretching out slow and dolorous, like taffy, lasting what feels like long minutes to Clark.  
  
The sonic boom from his exit sends spidervein cracks through a couple of penthouse windows in Metropolis, sends long, white furrows rippling over the Bay as Clark flies close to the ground, and in his mind, there is only a sharp, ringing note of no no no no no no--

* * *

  
  
The League turns up.  
They take out the bad guy--or, well, the black-market-funded scientists, who soil themselves when Aquaman and Wonder Woman come crashing through the roof of their makeshift laboratory, and fall all over themselves to tell Superman exactly how to deactivate the rest of the bombs.  
  
The League turns up-- _Batman_ does not.

* * *

  
  
Clark returns to scene of the initial bomb blast, in civilian clothing. The Wayne Inc. logo has cratered the intersection, the whole area roped off by GCPD squad cars and a lot of yellow tape. First responders have set up in the cleared square--a mess of ambulances and fire trucks, crowds milling about, covered in dust and the occasional bruise, reporters pressing up against the barriers, but not allowed in.

No one notices Clark walk in, from behind the building, evading the press cordon neatly, but Clark--doesn’t notice that he’s managed it either. There’s a deep hollow pulse in his ears. Batman didn’t turn up. He didn’t--if he was okay, he would have. If he was okay, he would have--said something.  
  
And even then--  
Even then--

If…  
If Clark knew, knew what they were, knew what the hell was going on between them--  
  
He could have called Bruce.  
He would be _allowed_ to call Bruce.  
To demand where he was, to ask if he was okay, to hold them, to know--  
  
Diana landed in the alley, beside him.  
  
“Clark?” she asked. Clark heard her voice faintly, as if it was coming from a thousand miles away. In some small, rational part of his mind, he wondered if this was what going into shock felt like, for humans. “You look unwell. Are you alright?”  
  
_No,_ he thought. _No, he really wasn’t._  
  
“Okay,” Diana said. “I’m going to get Bruce. Hold on.”  
  
He turned to her, grabbed her shoulder. “Bruce? He’s--okay?”  
  
Her frown cleared. Her eyes softened. “Oh Clark,” she said, and smiled, that quiet gentle thing that felt like benediction. She turned to the crowded, thronging intersection. There was a man sitting at the back of an ambulance, on the step, shirtsleeves rolled up, a streak of dust along his cheekbone. There was a paramedic beside him, and a blood pressure cuff around his bicep.  
  
Bruce.

“He’s right over there,” Diana said, and nudged him forward. Clark walked in a haze, almost all the way there. There was plaster dust in Bruce’s hair, his shoulders slumped with exhaustion, and still, still, he looked up at the paramedic when she was done, smiled at her, thanked her, forcing up some of that infamous Bruce Wayne charm. Clark watched her blush and walk away quickly--she would have a story for a few friends tonight, Clark figured, over drinks after the day’s excitement. All the watering holes in Gotham were going to do some furious business tonight.  
  
Bruce sagged visibly the moment she walked away, though, and Clark--

Stopped.  
  
What was he doing?  
Bruce wouldn’t--want him here.  
He wouldn’t--  
  
Bruce looked up. Saw Clark. His eyes widened for a second, in surprise, and then his mouth hitched in a brief, quiet, almost-smile, just a curl at the corner of his lips. His shoulder hitched up and down, in an almost self-deprecating shrug, as if to say,  _’Can you believe this shit?’_  
  
And--  
And something splintered in Clark's chest--  
Cracked and widened and burst with warmth.  
  
Clark was striding forward, the ambulance step putting Bruce perfectly level with him, and he was wrapping his arm around Bruce’s shoulders, holding, holding, hiding his face in the curve of his neck, heartbeat thundering, roaring--

Something was wrong.

Bruce. It was Bruce.

Still, stiff. Unmoving.

Slowly, carefully, Clark pulled back. It shouldn’t’ve hurt. Why did it _hurt_.  
  
“Bruce,” he said, and his voice was shaking.  
  
“Mr. Kent,” Bruce Wayne replied, eyes hard, his tone firmly, courteously polite, a charming smile in place, “I didn’t know they were letting the press in on this side.”  
  
“Oh.” There was a sick, ugly thing clawing in his chest. Clark wanted to--run, fly, get far far away. “I--yes. I’m so--I’ll. Go.”  
  
Bruce’s expression never wavered.  
Those cold eyes were cutting in to him, flaying him open.

_How dare you,_ was what they said. _How dare you presume, you arrogant son of a bitch._

Clark turned around, and walked away, and swallowed around the hardness in his throat, and the ache in his heart, and the sharpness of every breath.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**(collect and analyze data)**

The feeling persisted. Gotham felt too small, too confining—too stamped with Batman's mark. Clark disappeared into that back alley once more, didn’t look at Diana, changed back into the suit and took to the sky in a barely visible blur, escaping to the hollow silence of the earth’s exosphere.

Falling back into Metropolis airspace was no comfort, nor was returning back to the Planet's bullpen, where Lois watched him with bright, too-knowing eyes. The end of the day couldn’t come fast enough, and by the time Clark went home, to a dark empty apartment, silent as a tomb— _as your tomb,_ some awful voice hissed—he felt like he was unraveling at the edges, all the pieces of him slowly, steadily, bleeding out through his skin.

He dumped his things in the hallway, and walked down to the kitchen on sheer muscle memory, not bothering to use his eyes, when he knew exactly where everything was.

_Stupid._

He had been so—

 _Blind_.

Clark had read about it once: an experiment conducted in the 90s that asked a group of students by what time they thought they would have completed their graduate theses, in best-, average- and worst-case scenarios. W average number of days in the _very_ worst-case scenarios posited by the students worked out to 48.6 days.

It actually took the subject group, on average, 55.5 days to finish their theses.

The study had been about the planning fallacy theory, first proposed some fifteen-odd years previously, which talked about how people tended to overestimate the likelihood of good things working out by massive margins.

Like students thinking _they_ would be the ones to finish their homework on time, or smokers thinking _they_ wouldn’t get cancer, or BASE-jumpers thinking _their_ parachute would never stick.

Like thinking someone you love would—

Clark walked to the kitchen sink, gripping the edges, breathing hard. He ran the water, cupped it in hands and sank his face into his palms. He could hear the water rushing, softly, down the sink and into the drain, and past there, into the building’s pipes, tiny tributaries building into dark, rushing streams beneath the earth, could hear the tug of the current, somehow, could hear— could hear a _heartbeat—_

He spun around, jaw gritted together, eyes wide.

“Bruce,” he managed.

Bruce was leaning against the refrigerator, hands buried in his pockets. His shirt was still heavy with dust, thick layers of it in his hair, caked in the creases of his neck, just above his collar, like he’d only maybe had enough time to wash his face before—

Before he came here?

Why had he come here?

“What are you doing here?” clark paused, and a new thought occurred to him. “Is everything— Is everything alright? I thought it was okay to leave—” Christ, he’d been sulking in outer space, and the whole while—

“No. Clark.” Bruce closed his eyes and scrubbed his face. “Nothing like that.” he met Clark's gaze, eyes hooded and unreadable, and he must have seen something there, in his face, because Bruce straightened up then, and walked up to him, and placed his palm against Clark's cheek. The stubble tugged at the skin of Bruce's hand, at the callouses there, and Clark could feel his heart, the thrum in his wrist where it beat fast and hard.

Bruce was using most of his height now, to tower over clark. his other hand moved around Clark's body, now pressed back around the lip of the sink, and turned off the water, and silence rushed in to fill those spaces, amplifying the ragged sound of his breathing. Bruce was still cupping his face, like something delicate. His thumb was stroking Clark's cheek, and Clark could feel that small motion down to his toes.

“About—” Clark tried, and broke off when Bruce crowded him in tighter, until they were pressed thigh to thigh, chest to chest. “About today, I'm—”

“Sssh.” The other hand had come to the small of his back, radiating heat.

 _This was good,_ Clark thought faintly. This was— Bruce was defining the boundaries of their relationship, just like he had wanted. The dark, that was all Clark was allowed. Where no one could see them, where no one could know.

 _This is what you wanted,_ that voice told him, and the sickness was rising in his gut again, like a kryptonite overexposure, a roiling, writhing mass in his chest, clawing at him with hot, glowing knives. Bruce was still holding him, in that loose, tender grip, just breathing him in, and Clark surged up on a groan, kissed that cruel, beautiful mouth, swallowed the sound Bruce made. There were hands all over him it seemed, hungry and desperate, stroking warm lines of heat over his back, his sides, clenching in his hair, digging into his ass, holding, holding, endlessly pulling him in.

Bruce's tongue was clever and quick and agile, that same tongue that had skewered him alive in broad daylight, that had cut him to _nothing_ , like it was nothing, like _he_ was—

And now Bruce was— _devouring_ him, a tight grip at the base of his skull, angling his mouth wide, his tongue stroking hot, tight flicks just at the roof of his mouth, tongues tangling, sucking, kissing around every breathless gasp.

He was going to—

He was—

Clark pushed Bruce away with a harsh, desperate breath. Bruce stumbled back for half a second, before Clark caught his palm, and he steadied.

His mouth was a kiss-bruised red, his hair a mess, shirt unbuttoned halfway down—Clark didn’t even remember doing that. The fall of his trousers was ruined by that straining bulge at his groin.

“Clark,” Bruce said, voice low and roughened.

“I can’t do this,” Clark said. Every molecule in his body was straining towards Bruce. Every part of him, begging for relief. “I can’t do this anymore.”

* * *

 

 

**(present a conclusion)**

Neither of them could have said how long they stood there, but it was, eventually, Bruce, who broke the silence. “What happened today—”

“God, please,” Clark sighed, “we don't have to talk about that. I get it, okay?”

“Is that right.”

“I’m— If I made you uncomfortable…”

“Please don't,” Bruce said sharply.

“What?”

“Don’t apologize.” Bruce looked pained.

“I. Okay. It’s only that—I do understand, is the thing. It’s okay. I get that—that you aren't—you don't—” Christ, why the hell did this hurt so much? “It’s fine, Bruce. It’s all. Fine.”

“I see.”

 _Do you,_ Clark wanted to ask. _What the hell do you see? Because I feel like I’ve been walking blind for the last twelve hours._

“The thing I wanted to say, when I came…” Bruce seemed to take a quick breath, and steady himself. What I wanted to say was, I’m. I’m very bad at this.”

Clark remembered thinking there wasn't a single goddamn thing Bruce Wayne didn't do perfectly, and he frowned. “At what?”

Bruce was smiling at the ground, a crooked quiet thing. “This,” he said inscrutably. Clark realized the hand on top of his had never been lifted away, and now Bruce was stroking it, running a thumb over the ridge of his knuckles, a gentle, absent movement. “I’ve been. Most of my life, I’ve been alone. There was always Alfred, and later, Dick, and— and—” He exhaled shakily. His hand tightened around Clark's. “It’s the sort of thing you get used to.”

“And you're used to being alone,” Clark finished. There was a harsh, empty feeling in his chest, like his bones hurt. “I know, Bruce.”

“No, I'm… saying it wrong.” He stepped closer. pulled that hand up, until Clark's palm was against Bruce's chest. Over his heart. “When you’ve been alone for that alone, it becomes a habit. Hard to shake off. When you—what happened today— I didn't expect it. I didn't see it coming. When you have— When you have hurt someone, wronged someone, the way I did you, at the start of things, you don't—you teach yourself not to expect anything. You have to force yourself not to want… more.”

That's what… But that's what Clark had been doing.

That was what Clark had been doing for _months._

“And then, you walked up to me, and did _that_ , and it was— I was blindsided. That's what I wanted to say. That if, if I had ever thought there was a—a _fraction_ of a chance that—”

“That what.” His voice was sandpaper hoarse.

“That you—wanted this— _me—_ ”

“Do you love me?” _shit shit shit what the hell why did he—_

“Yes,” Bruce said, just like that. _Yes_ , like it was the easiest thing in the world.


	5. Chapter 5

**(repeat the experiment)**

“Yes,” Clark repeated. There was a pounding in his ears. It was possible he had somehow managed to move in even closer. When Bruce breathed in, Clark could feel it against his chest.

“I love you,” he said again, like hammerblows against the tenuous walls of Clark’s restraint.

“Jesus, Bruce.”

Bruce smiled, huffed a hollow laugh. He looked at the ground, looked away. Clark brought his other hand up, touched the beautiful lines of his face, and Bruce inhaled sharply, eyes meeting Clark's in the almost dark of his apartment. The lights from Metropolis’ skyline filtered in through the windows, limning Bruce in a beaten silver-blue glow.

“Clark…”

But Clark was tilting up, and brushing his lips against Bruce's, pulse hammering in his throat. Bruce made a soft, strangled noise and then his hands had come to grip his neck, and he was opening his mouth, his tongue delving against Clark's, kissing messily, frantically, barely restrained. His hands were hungry too, shoving up Clark’s shirt from his trousers, sliding against the warm silk of his back, past the waistband to dig into his ass, pulling their hips close, hard and furious. His tongue was relentless, flicking, dragging, pressing into the spot, until Clark was dripping, in his pants, soaking the front with slick, clear precome, and Bruce pulled away on a gasp. he shoved Clark's pants down in a series of sharp movements, and Clark felt the shake in his hand when he saw…

“S—sorry,” he said. “There's just… When I'm… There's a lot, I know.”

Bruce's hand skated over the top of his thigh, and came away slicked wet, gleaming. “Jesus, he mumbled, slurred and thick. And then he was doing it again, cupping his balls, squeezing, forcing more slick out of Clark's cock, and they were both breathing. “Fuck, Clark, you're—wet for me, are you—”

“You don't… mind?”

Bruce choked out an airless laugh. “Don't _mind_ ,” he said to himself softly, incredulous. Those hands were moving to his back, smearing wet over the base of his spine, over his hole, and Clark squeezed his eyes shut. Bruce's fingers were thick, wet, stroking, opening him up.

“Is this okay,” he said, and Clark clutched at his shoulders, forced himself to relax, taking those broad, beautiful fingers a little deeper.

“God, fuck, fuck,” he was whispering, over and over, and Bruce was scissoring three fingers in, and finding his mouth and fucking that hot tongue against his palate, right as his clever fingers found his prostate and—and _rubbed_. The fine wool of Bruce's trousers was soaked with Clark’s precome, wadding tightly to his thigh, to his hard cock, and Clark couldn't stop himself, couldn't stop rutting against that big, beautiful body, and Bruce was touching his hair, carding his fingers through the sweat-soaked strands at the back of his neck, and saying, “Are you going to come for me, sweetheart? Are you going to—”

It was like he was surrounded by Bruce, like drowning in him. He came in great shuddering, knee-weakening spurts, coating the front of those trousers, coating Bruce's fist, biting against the hard tendon in his shoulder, tears stinging the back of his eyes. He could feel Bruce, trembling, with the effort it took not to, to do what Clark had done, and he realized Bruce wouldn't do anything more— wasn't going to do anything— not unless _Clark_ asked.

Penance, was the word that came to his mind. This was Bruce repenting for his sins, and it shook something in his chest, broke it open, and before he knew it, Clark was dropping to his knees, peeling those trousers away.

“Clark,” Bruce was saying, from above him, “Clark no you don't have to,” which was patently ridiculous: Of course he didn't _have_ to. He just really, really wanted—

Wanted to peel off those trousers, watch the way his cock slapped up against his stomach when he pulled down his briefs. Wanted to put his mouth just below the head and lick along the vein, a long, slow drag. _“Clark,”_ Bruce was groaning, “Jesus fuck, Clark, oh god,” and then he went to work, relaxing his throat, swallowing Bruce down, down to the hilt, those heavy tight balls brushing his chin, and—

It turned out—

It turned out Bruce had been right, because that cock was hard and pulsing and silk-smooth-hot in his mouth, throbbing against his palate, just a hard, relentless pressure against the roof of his mouth, and Clark could feel his cock twitching up again. He bobbed his head, feel that tight dark slide of Bruce's cock in his mouth, and _oh shit, oh god—_

“Fuck,” Bruce breathed softly. “Is that—Christ, are you? Again?” There was wonder in his voice, a harsh low vibration of it, and Clark widened his mouth, letting Bruce rock his hips, letting him set the pace, until, until he couldn't he couldn't bear it, until he was panting moaning around every thrust, god, god, there were tears leaking down from his eyes, and his cock was so hard, Bruce fucking his mouth, and Clark fucking desperately into his own fist. He was leaking into the floor, a puddle of slick clear precome spreading on the linoleum, while Bruce gripped the back of his head, tried to pull him away— “I'm going to— _nnngh_ , Clark, I'm going to—” Clark bore down with a hungry noise, fucking Bruce's cock in shallow strokes so that fat mushroom head kept bumping hard against his spot, groaning hard and steady. He felt those balls tighten, felt the pulse of them before Bruce was biting back a shout, coating his tongue, splattering his mouth with hot wet bitter, and Clark felt a sharp burst of electricity crackle all up his spine before he was coming too, spraying the floor with come, moaning around his softening cock.

He could feel the tremble in Bruce's knees when he pulled off, cleaning the head with his tongue. He was looking down at Clark with the strangest look in his eyes, wild and tender and—

“You planning on getting up anytime?” Bruce asked.

Clark thought about it. “Nope.”

Bruce quirked the side of his mouth in a half-amused smile, and held out his hand and tugged Clark up to his feet anyway. They stumbled to his bedroom and shucked off what remained of their clothes and crawled under the heavy quilt. It was quiet. Bruce was on his side, looking at Clark.

They had never done this before, either: sleep together. Fall asleep together.

Clark thought about, thought about coming home every night, sliding beneath the sheets and finding Bruce beside him. A sweet, heavy jolt lanced through his ribs.

“Will you stay?” he asked.

“As long as you want me to,” Bruce replied.

Clark shuffled forward on the sheets, and kissed him again, gentle, the way his chest felt, raw and open and yearning.

 _Stay,_ is what he tried to tell him. _Stay,_ and _forever,_ and _I hope you're sure about this, because there's not a chance in hell I’m ever letting you go._

Bruce kissed back like he heard.

**Author's Note:**

> AND THEY FELL ASLEEP HOLDING HANDS LIKE THE ABSOLUTE GIANT DORKS THEY ARE AND WOKE UP TOGETHER EVERY MORNING AND IT WAS WONDERFUL FOREVER AND SOMETIMES THEY EVEN SAVED THE WORLD BUT FIRST THEY SAVED _EACH OTHER_ *gasp* THE END


End file.
